[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 54 (Wednesday, March 28, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H3267-H3268]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               CBC BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WATERS. I would like to begin by congratulating Congresswoman 
Carolyn Kilpatrick, the Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, and 
Congressman Bobby Scott, Chair of the CBC Budget Task Force, for their 
leadership in developing the CBC budget.
  I strongly support the CBC budget because it provides sufficient 
funding for critical domestic priorities such as health care, 
education, and community development. For example, the CBC budget 
spends $112 billion more than the Budget Committee's budget and $158 
billion more than the President's budget on education, training, 
employment, and social services. Yet the CBC budget still eliminates 
the deficit by 2012.
  As the Chair of the Subcommittee on Housing and Community 
Opportunity, I am deeply concerned about the need for affordable 
housing in America. The CBC budget recognizes that affordable housing 
is all but out of reach for many Americans. Just imagine, the 2006 
average minimum wage required to rent affordable housing is $16.31 an 
hour, more than three times the Federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour, 
putting most housing out of reach for many American families.
  Approximately 6 million persons in this country are very needy, 
paying more than 50 percent of their income for housing. This is a real 
threat to families trying to educate their children and make ends meet. 
Affordable rental housing is critical to communities across this 
Nation. Public housing is still part of the solution, community 
development programs are part of the solution, and the renewal of the 
section 8 voucher and many other housing programs is part of the 
solution.
  The President's fiscal year 2008 budget request would cut overall net 
funding for public housing by $477 million, from $6.4 billion to $5.9 
billion, a cut of 7 percent. While the budget increases the operating 
fund by $136 million, public housing authorities are estimated to 
receive only 80 percent of their total operating expenses. The budget 
decreases the capital fund used to repair

[[Page H3268]]

and modernize public housing units by $415 million, to only $2.0 
billion.
  Continuing a downward spiral in funding, this is part of the effort 
to dismantle public housing as we know it. We cannot sit idly by and 
let this happen. The community development programs would be seriously 
eroded and undermined if left to this administration. The Brownfields 
and the section 108 loan guarantee program would also be eliminated. 
The Community Development Block Grant Program would be cut by 20 
percent, losing $735 million. And the list goes on and on.
  In addition, Section 202 and 811 housing programs for the elderly and 
disabled would be cut drastically in the administration budget 
proposal. Rural housing programs would also suffer serious cutbacks 
faring no better.
  The administration's budget proposes to terminate the major Rural 
Section 515 rental housing program, which would leave thousands of 
families living in rural communities, many poor, working families with 
children, and the disabled and elderly without affordable housing.
  There is another issue that I feel strongly about that is addressed 
in this budget. As a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, I am 
highly concerned about the origin and proliferation of gangs in 
communities throughout the United States. Along with full committee 
chairman John Conyers and Crime Subcommittee chairman Bobby Scott, I 
plan to retool existing authorized Federal programs to comprehensively 
address this problem. This requires full funding of the following 
programs: the Juvenile Accountability Block Grant, the Gang Resistance 
Education and Training Program, the Youth Violence Reduction 
Demonstration Projects that are administered by the Department of 
Justice, and the Compassion Capital Fund, which is administered by the 
Department of Health and Human Services.
  In the city of Los Angeles, there are approximately 4,000 gangs and 
39,000 gang members. For 2006, there were about 470 homicides, and 250 
were gang related. Of the shootings in the city last year, 70 percent 
were gang related. According to a September 1, 2006, report by Los 
Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, it costs about $287 million to treat 
and hospitalize victims of nonfatal gang assaults countywide in one 
year.
  This is not only in Los Angeles. There are gang problems all over 
America, and not simply in our cities but in our rural communities, in 
our suburban communities.
  It is about time that we focus some efforts on dealing with the gangs 
from two perspectives:
  Number one, we have got to have prevention. We have got to be able to 
provide social services. We have got to be able to meet the needs of 
people in communities that have no hope.
  Number two, yes, we must be tough. But the answer is not simply lock 
them up and throw the key away. The answer is, how do we prevent young 
people, young children, from connecting and getting involved with gangs 
in the first place? We need serious funding and smart assembly of 
existing programs to effectively halt the recruitment of new gang 
members.
  We need serious funding and smart assembly of existing programs to 
effectively halt the recruitment of new gang members; to reduce the 
incidence of homicide and violence between gangs; to implement programs 
that deliver support services and job training; and to enable 
communities to solve problems that lead to race-related gang tensions.


                               Conclusion

  I urge all of my colleagues to support the CBC Budget so that we can 
begin to tackle important issues like gang violence and the need for 
affordable housing in our communities.

                          ____________________